Miles From Where You Are
by ariel2me
Summary: Stannis Baratheon, Shireen Baratheon and a late night conversation about Edric Storm, leaving Dragonstone and sailing to the Wall. Spoilers up to A Storm of Swords.


They were watching each other warily from across the room. His daughter, still awake this late at night. The fool Patchface was not with her, as he usually was. She seemed smaller, more vulnerable without him trailing behind her.

"What happened? Did you have another bad dream?"

She hesitated. _My daughter is afraid of me. I was never in fear of my parents, yet my daughter is afraid of me._ The thought saddened him, before the sadness was driven out by another thought. _I have no right to be sad. It is my doing, her fear, all mine._

"Where is Edric? Did you send him back to Storm's End, father?"

Yet there was no trace of fear in her voice as she asked the question. Or judgment either. She merely wanted to know.

It had not crossed his mind how he would answer this question, if his daughter ever asked it. In fact, it had not crossed his mind that Shireen would ask _him_ the question. Her mother would explain things to her. Or Maester Cressen, when he was alive. Or Maester Pylos.

No, actually he did not know how close his daughter was to Pylos. Was she fond of him the way she was very fond of Cressen? Somehow he doubted it. _She had loved Cressen_, he knew, as he remembered watching the two of them together. _And Cressen had loved her too._

Like a daughter?

_No, more like a granddaughter._

His daughter was watching him very carefully. "A sad, sweet, gentle child", he had heard others spoke of her. _Yes, but also a very discerning child_, he thought. A child who saw and understood things other children her age would not. And a very brave child, who conquered her fear of her father to ask about her cousin.

"Uncle Andrew took him to a ... safer place." Ser Andrew Estermont, his cousin on his mother's side. He had not gotten the name, or any name, from Davos of course. But there were other ways of finding out.

"Safer? Was he in danger here? From whom?"

_From me. From your father. From his ... father's brother._

She looked so terrified, he wondered for a moment if he had accidentally spoken the words aloud. _No, she's terrified for Edric, not of my intentions. _He considered long and hard what to tell his daughter.

"He will be safer elsewhere. And we are leaving Dragonstone anyway, to sail to the Wall. Did your mother tell you that?"

The creases on her forehead and the furrowed brows told him she was not satisfied with his answer. But the mention of the Wall brought out another barrage of questions.

"Yes, mother said. But she didn't say if we will be coming back. And what about Edric? What if he comes back and we're all gone?"

_Still a child after all_, he mused. He was on the verge of a smile, when the thought came. _She would find it patronizing, the smile. She would think that I am not taking her concerns seriously_. He managed to stop himself from smiling in time.

"Come here," he finally said. They had been conversing from across the room the whole time, him standing next to the Painted Table, her standing near the door. She walked across the room so quickly, he was surprised to find her standing next to him before he had time to compose his thoughts.

They were standing at the Dragonstone spot carved on the table. He held her up and sat her on the raised seat. She touched her right index finger on the carved shape of the dragons. Her tiny fingers and intense look of concentration broke his heart.

"This is where we are now. This is our home."

"Yes, that's Dragonstone."

"And we are going to the Wall." Her finger traced a path across Blackwater Bay to the land mass of Westeros, and slowly moving up North. He took her hand gently, and guided the finger back to Dragonstone.

"No, we are not going that way. We are sailing straight from Dragonstone to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea."

Their hands traced the path together across the sea. At some point, she could not lean to the right on the raised seat any longer. She came down from the seat on her own, her fingers still holding on tight to his. They continued tracing the path, but this time it was her hand guiding his, as they walked side-by-side next to the Painted Table.

Somewhere around the The Fingers carved on the map, he was struck by a sudden realization. Edric storm would not have been a true sacrifice. _I have never loved the boy. I despise him because he reminds me of how my brother shamed and humiliated me on my wedding night._ How could it be a true sacrifice if he was not someone truly cherished and loved?

And it finally exposed what he had told Davos as the big lie that it was. "If I must sacrifice one child to the flames to save a million from the dark .. Sacrifice is never easy, Davos. Or it is no true sacrifice." He was willing to sacrifice Edric Storm _because_ it was easy, he admitted to himself now. If it had been .. if it had been someone else ...

"Why have we stopped? We're not there yet, father."

They continued until their fingers touched Eastwatch-by-the-Sea on the Painted Table.

"Is this where you will fight the wildlings?"

He had not realized that Selyse had told their daughter that part too.

"No. That is where you and your mother will stay. The men and I will continue to Castle Black."

"Why can't we come with you?"

_Because you are my only child, and my heir. And if I perish in the battle, the Iron Throne is yours by rights, and by all the laws in Westeros_.

_Because I need to keep you safe._

"The Black Brothers, the Night's Watch men, they are not used to women and children. Do you know why?"

"They took the vow. Master Pylos taught us. Devan, Edric and me." Her brows furrowed in concentration again. "Will Devan go with you to Castle Black?"

_She will lose another companion. It will be just her and that fool Patchface again. _

"Would you like Devan to stay at Eastwatch?"

"No!" she replied quickly. "He's your squire, he should be with you. To keep you safe."

That last part was spoken very, very softly.

He wished he knew how to reassure, comfort, or even talk to his daughter. Davos made it seem so easy, with his own sons and other children.

"How far is it, from Eastwatch to Castle Black?" She asked, before he had a chance to say anything.

"One day for a raven to travel." She was more used to thinking of distance in terms of raven days, he knew. Maester Cressen had taught her that.

Her hand guided his finger from Eastwatch to Castle Black, and back to Eastwatch again.

"It's not that far after all," Shireen smiled.

But he knew better than anyone that distance was not really a function of physical separation. You can live in the same castle and still be as far apart as people on the other side of the world. _And whose fault was that? Who was the one who kept everyone at arm's length, including his own wife and daughter? _He dismissed his reproaching thoughts to return to his daughter.

"No, not far at all," Stannis replied.


End file.
